The Ruins of Lace / Iris Anthony (17th Century)
The demand for illegal Flemish lace in seventeenth century France impacts everyone from a blind lacemaker who would likely become a prostitute should her disability come to light to a count whose confidence can be bought with the smuggled good. (FIC ANTHONY)
A Taste for Nightshade / Matine Bailey (1787)
After a shipwreck frees a budding criminal bound for the Australian penal colony, she takes a job as a cook at Delafosse Hall where she plots her revenge in this historical novel that also features authentic 19th century recipes. (FIC BAILEY)
Longbourn / Jo Baker (Early 19th Century)
Elizabeth and Darcy take a backseat in this engrossing Austen homage, which focuses on the lives of the servants of Longbourn rather than the Bennet family. (FIC BAKER)
The Courtesan / Alexandra Curry (1881)
A fictionalized account of the life of orphan Sai Jinhua who is sold to a brothel keeper in China after her father’s death. She then becomes a concubine to a scholar and he takes her on a diplomatic mission to Vienna. She eventually returns to China a changed woman. (FIC CURRY)
The Scandal of the Season / Sophie Gee (1711)
A tale based on the early eighteenth-century scandal that inspired Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” finds an impoverished Alexander Pope gaining entry into society and following a forbidden affair between the rakish Lord Petre and the coquettish Arabella. (FIC GEE)
Dictator / Robert Harris (58 BC)
With his life in ruins, an exiled Cicero plots a comeback to become Rome’s supreme senator. (FIC HARRIS)
The Devil’s Company / David Liss (1722)
Blackmailed into stealing trade secrets from the ruthless British East India Company of eighteenth-century London, Benjamin Weaver discovers that he has been drawn into a daring conspiracy for which he must infiltrate the company to save his loved ones. (FIC LISS)
The Accidental Empress / Allison Pataki (1853)
The New York Times best-selling author of The Traitor’s Wife fictionalizes the little-known and tumultuous love story of “Sisi,” the 19th-century Austro-Hungarian empress and captivating wife of Emperor Franz Joseph. (FIC PATAKI)
Mistress of My Fate / Hallie Rubenhold (19th Century)
In the first novel of a trilogy set in 19th century London, Henrietta Lightfoot, an orphan raised with her cousins, learns to fend for herself on the streets of the city as a courtesan, a gambler and a feisty intellectual. (FIC RUBENHOLD)
The Marriage Game / Allison Weir (1558)
A sequel to The Lady Elizabeth recounts the dramatic story of the Virgin Queen and her scandalous relationship with Lord Robert Dudley, a reign marked by rumors about their illegitimate child and the suspicious death of his wife. (FIC WEIR)